UPI-powered WhatsApp Pay is now available for everyone in India

January 1, 2025

WhatsApp Pay is now available for everyone. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

WhatsApp by Meta has been offering WhatsApp Pay, a Unified Payment Interface (UPI)-powered payment service, for a while. However, there was a limit on the number of users that WhatsApp could onboard. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has removed that limit, which is a relief for WhatsApp as it can onboard as many users as needed.

“Previously, NPCI had permitted WhatsApp Pay to expand its UPI user base in a phased manner. With this development, WhatsApp Pay can now extend UPI services to its entire user base in India,” NPCI said in a press statement.

NPCI had enforced a limit on the number of users WhatsApp could onboard for its payment service to monitor security and performance concerns. This restriction limited Meta to onboarding a maximum of 100 million users for WhatsApp Pay in 2022.

WhatsApp Pay enables users to send or receive money with fellow WhatsApp users without leaving the app. Users can send money requests and can also send money to users of other UPI payment apps such as PhonePe and GPay.

However, NPCI has also delayed the rollout of a 30 per cent UPI market share cap for all players by two more years. This means service providers like GPay, PhonePe, Paytm, WhatsApp Pay, and others can hold a maximum market share of over 30 per cent until at least December 2026, a big relief for PhonePe, which currently has over 47 per cent market share.

Search

RECENT PRESS RELEASES